Off Track Thoroughbreds

Rosie Napravnik aboard Shanghai Bobby. Photo credit Susie Raisher

(Press Release)—Rosie Napravnik, one of the most successful jockeys in Thoroughbred racing, will be signing autographs at Saratoga Racecourse on July 31 to benefit the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s “Olivia’s Herd.”

The fifth race on the Saratoga card that day will be named the “Olivia’s Herd” in honor of Olivia Saylor, the late daughter of racehorse owner and breeder Paul Saylor. Saylor is a regular contributor to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. He created the “Olivia’s Herd” Fund in 2011 in Olivia’s memory to provide for the horses in the TRF program which are most in need of special care or feeding because of age or other physical condition.

“Caring for animals was Olivia’s passion,” said Paul Saylor. “This day at the races will bring awareness to the mission of ‘Olivia’s Herd’ and the work of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. I am thrilled that Rosie will be there to raise the profile of the cause and attract young people to the track and to the mission of ‘Olivia’s Herd’.”

Olivia’s Herd— Payasito, Fat Lear and Golden Axe are among the horses making up the group of horses helped by Napravnik’s effort.

The TRF will be giving away commemorative gifts to anyone who comes and signs up for information about “Olivia’s Herd” at the NYRA Charity Booth from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM that day.

Napravnik will appear at the NYRA Charity Booth from noon to 12:30 to sign autographs.

Napravnik is a superstar among female jockeys.

She became the first woman in history to ride in all three jewels of the Triple Crown in 2013. On May 4, 2012 Napravnik became the first female rider in the 138-year history to win the prestigious Kentucky Oaks. She took the classic for fillies aboard the aptly named filly Believe You Can. She triumphed again this year, bringing home the garland of lilies aboard the Ron Winchell owned filly Untapable.

Prized Max enjoys the good life as another member of Olivia’s Herd.

In 2012 Napravnik broke Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone’s 20-year standing record when she landed in the highest spot ever for a female jockey on the year-end North American leader board. She finished the year with $12,451,713 in purse earnings from 193 wins, putting her in eighth place in the year-end standings. She bested those numbers in 2013 when she finished the year with an astonishing 269 wins, which included 44 stakes wins (19 graded stakes), placing her fifth on the North American leader board in wins and eighth in purse earnings ($13,242,202). No jockey in the top 25 year-end earnings standings had a higher win percentage than her 22% clip.

Olivia’s Herd is a testament to a young lady who loved animals.

The horses in “Olivia’s Herd” are the TRF’s horses that are most in need of special care or feeding because of age or other physical condition. Care for these horses is funded by gifts made to the TRF in memory of Olivia Saylor who died January 1, 2011 in Charleston, S.C.

When she’s not racing, Napravnik rides her OTTB Sugar for pleasure. Photo by Lynn Towery Roberts

Olivia was very involved with her father and siblings in the Thoroughbred racing business. She is credited with naming Ashado, two time champion filly raced by the Saylor family in partnership with Starlight Stables. This partnership also campaigned Grade I winners Purge and Monba. Olivia with her siblings and father also owned and raced champion Fleet Indian. “Olivia would have wanted to care for the horses most in need,” said Paul Saylor. “Protecting racehorses and protecting the TRF as an ongoing entity to help racehorses should be a priority for everyone who is in racing.”

About TRF: Founded in 1983, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) is the largest equine rescue organization of its kind, devoted to the rescue, retirement, rehabilitation and retraining of Thoroughbred racehorses no longer able to compete on the track. The TRF is perhaps best known for its pioneering TRF Second Chances Program which pairs inmates at various state correctional facilities across the nation with ex-racehorses. The inmates participate in a certified vocational training course in horse care and stable maintenance while experiencing the therapeutic benefit of working with horses. For additional information: go to www.trfinc.org, or call (518)226-0028. ♥

Author’s note— If you enjoy stories like these, please consider visiting the blog’s new store, Off-Track Products. Proceeds will help sustain this blog in the future, and go to charity.

Portfolio suffered a life-threatening bout of gas gangrene after she was retired by friends of her original breeder, who’s last wish was to see her mare returned to California.

Before blood filled the nostrils of the flashy race mare Portfolio in an abortive race at Thistledown this May, the beautiful mare’s breeder died, with one last wish left unfulfilled.

To bring the mare home was all Phyllis Lambert wanted. To get her off the racetracks and onto a pasture where she could dawdle, was much of what the sick horseman thought about in her last year.

At one point, the well-respected California horse trainer and breeder tried to buy the mare outright, but the race owner declined her offer.

On March 27, Lambert succumbed to chronic pulmonary disease and never saw her favorite horse come home.

Portfolio
Sire: Indian Country
Dam: Strand of Pearls
Foal date: April 16, 2007
Earnings: $172,033
Breeder: Leigh Ann Howard &
Phyllis LambertTwo months later, the flashy chestnut mare she raised with an abundance of hands-on care, failed to finish her 39th start when she bled from both nostrils at Thistledown.

At which point, Lambert’s friends decided it didn’t have to end like this.

Come hell or high water, friends and sympathetic horsemen vowed to get the horse retired.

First they tried to purchase the animal outright, and were refused, says Gail Hirt of Beyond the Roses Equine Rescue and Retirement. So working with racehorse owner and horse-welfare advocate Maggi Moss along with race trainers willing to help, the mare was claimed June 14 for $4,000 at Thistledown, and shipped to Hirt’s Michigan facility for a brief layup before traveling on to California.

Three photos show the The progression of her illness. It began with a large lump, which was cut open, and is now healing.

“This is where the story begins,” says Hirt, audibly exhausted from an unforeseen turn of events that left the mare battling for her own life, and Hirt scrambling for funds to pay for emergency veterinary services.

“The day she arrived and unloaded from the trailer, the trainer brought to my attention that she had a lump on her neck,” Hirt says. “Within three hours it grew to the size of a Nerf football. We didn’t know what it was. It was huge.”

Her vet Dr. Jessica Younk of Blue Water Equine Hospital raced to the barn on a Sunday night and identified the mass as gas gangrene (medical term: Clostridial Myositis), a potentially fatal side effect of an intramuscular injection gone wrong, Hirt explains.

The worst is over! Portfolio was treated throughout her ordeal with sedation.

Four days later, after the mass had traveled down the mare’s neck like an invading creature in a horror movie, her very life lay threatened.

Out of options and desperate to save the beautiful horse, the doctor opened up the gruesome infection to expose it to air, and physically drain it. High doses of antibiotics were administered, and Hirt spent weeks nursing the mare back to health and fundraising for emergency veterinary services on the Go Fund Me me site.

“Once they cut her, I had to irrigate and clean her sores twice a day. The vet was concerned I might get nauseated. But it didn’t bother me. The only thing that bothers me is having to euthanize a horse,” Hirt says. And Portfolio, who stood quietly, without so much as a pinned ear or anxious sidestep, leaned heavily on her ground manners, learned so long ago.

She gets her first breath of fresh air after a month confined to her stall.

“Phyllis (Lambert) imprinted her when she was first born, meaning that she handled the young foal a lot to get her used to human interaction. She handled her feet, her ears, her mouth, and she was bottle-fed because her mother’s milk was bad,” Hirt says.

Lambert would have been proud to see her mare so well behaved, so classy. And Hirt admits she understood in those long days and nights why Portfolio’s breeder longed to take her home.

“I don’t usually cry when horses leave me. But I’m going to cry when she goes. If she didn’t already have a new home to go to, and I didn’t have the horses I have, she would not be leaving,” Hirt says. But by the first week of August, she plans to put her on a van headed west to California, where an owner hand-selected by Lambert’s friends will offer her the retirement that Phyllis Lambert had dreamed for her. ♥

Author’s note— If you enjoy stories like these, please consider visiting the blog’s new store, Off-Track Products. Proceeds will help sustain this blog in the future, and go to charity.